A new MIT research center promises to accelerate our journey to a future in which bionics help people everywhere overcome the challenges of disabilities -- and even enhance human potential. The future is near: Bionics replace or restore the function of missing or damaged body parts with electronic devices -- examples include leg exoskeletons and mind-controlled prosthetic arms. These devices can be life-changing, but many are still unique and experimental, meaning the only people to benefit from them are a handful of study participants. The faster we can advance bionics research, the sooner they'll be available to everyone who needs them. "We must continually strive towards a technological future in which disability is no longer a common life experience," MIT professor Hugh Herr, himself a double amputee, told MIT News.

Hardly a day goes by without a mention of Artificial Intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things (IoT), blockchain, or 5G these days. Blockchain was more of a fad in 2017 than it is today, as many people equated the technology with soaring cryptocurrency prices representing a quick way to get rich for those who tried their luck. While at the beginning of last year cryptocurrencies went belly-up even faster than they had risen, the underlying technology's promises went much further than in the crypto space. Even though as a technology it is slow, energy-inefficient (even though this is gradually improving), and solves none of the problems that could not be solved by technologies that existed before it like centralised databases, digital signatures and certificates, fintech, escrow arrangements, letters of credit and information sharing on platforms like Git and Peer-to-Peer networks, blockchain enthusiasts still see a glimmer of hope in possible future technological improvements and favourable regulatory regimes. In stark contrast, AI as it is today already provides a very stable foundation on which to build the future of things to come.

Until we can design a mind that's superhuman and flawless, we'll have to settle for instilling plain old human values into artificial intelligence. But how to do this in a world where values are constantly evolving? Many of our life choices today would be considered immoral by people in the Middle Ages -- or even the 1970s, says Ben Goertzel, whose family personally experienced the sad state of LGBTQ acceptance in Southern New Jersey 50 years ago. Raising an A.I. is a lot like raising kids, says Goertzel. Kids don't learn best from a list of rules, but from lived experience – watching and imitating their parents. A.I.s and humans will have to play and learn side by side, and evolve together as values adapt toward an increasingly technological future.